The Way of the

World

The Way of the World is a play written by

the English playwright William Congreve. It
premiered in early March 1700 in the
theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. It
is widely regarded as one of the best
Restoration comedies and is still
occasionally performed. Initially, however,
the play struck many audience members
as continuing the immorality of the
previous decades, and was not well
received.[1]
 The Way of the World

Facsimile of the original title page for The Way of

the World published in 1700

Written by William Congreve

Date premiered 1700

Place premiered Lincoln's Inn Fields

Genre Restoration comedy

Setting London
Characters
The play is centred on the two lovers
Mirabell and Millamant (originally played
by John Verbruggen and Anne
Bracegirdle). In order for them to marry
and receive Millamant's full dowry,
Mirabell must receive the blessing of
Millamant's aunt, Lady Wishfort.
Unfortunately, Lady Wishfort is a very
bitter lady who despises Mirabell and
wants her own nephew, Sir Wilfull, to wed
Millamant.

Another character, Fainall, is having a

secret affair with Mrs. Marwood, a friend
of Mrs. Fainall's, who in turn once had an
affair with Mirabell. In the meantime,
Mirabell's servant is married to Foible,
Lady Wishfort's servant. Waitwell pretends
to be Sir Rowland and, on Mirabell's
command, tries to trick Lady Wishfort into
a false engagement.

Plot
Act 1 is set in a chocolate house where
Mirabell and Fainall have just finished
playing cards. A footman comes and tells
Mirabell that Waitwell (Mirabell's male
servant) and Foible (Lady Wishfort's
female servant) were married that
morning. Mirabell tells Fainall about his
love of Millamant and is encouraged to
marry her. Witwoud and Petulant appear
and Mirabell is informed that should Lady
Wishfort marry, he will lose £6000 of
Millamant's inheritance. He will only get
this money if he can get Lady Wishfort's
consent to his and Millamant's marriage.

Act 2 is set in St. James’ Park. Mrs. Fainall

and Mrs. Marwood are discussing their
hatred of men. Fainall appears and
accuses Mrs. Marwood (with whom he is
having an affair) of loving Mirabell (which
she does). Meanwhile, Mrs. Fainall
(Mirabell's former lover) tells Mirabell that
she hates her husband, and they begin to
plot to deceive Lady Wishfort into giving
her consent to the marriage. Millamant
appears in the park and, angry about the
previous night (when Mirabell was
confronted by Lady Wishfort), she tells
Mirabell of her displeasure in his plan,
which she only has a vague idea about.
After she leaves, the newly wed servants
appear and Mirabell reminds them of their
roles in the plan.

Acts 3, 4 and 5 are all set in the home of

Lady Wishfort. We are introduced to Lady
Wishfort who is encouraged by Foible to
marry the supposed Sir Rowland –
Mirabell's supposed uncle – so that
Mirabell will lose his inheritance. Sir
Rowland is, however, Waitwell in disguise,
and the plan is to entangle Lady Wishfort
in a marriage which cannot go ahead,
because it would be bigamy, not to
mention a social disgrace (Waitwell is only
a serving man, Lady Wishfort an
aristocrat). Mirabell will offer to help her
out of the embarrassing situation if she
consents to his marriage. Later, Mrs.
Fainall discusses this plan with Foible, but
this is overheard by Mrs. Marwood. She
later tells the plan to Fainall, who decides
that he will take his wife's money and go
away with Mrs. Marwood.
Mirabell and Millamant, equally strong-
willed, discuss in detail the conditions
under which they would accept each other
in marriage (otherwise known as the
"proviso scene"), showing the depth of
their feeling for each other. Mirabell finally
proposes to Millamant and, with Mrs.
Fainall's encouragement (almost consent,
as Millamant knows of their previous
relations), Millamant accepts. Mirabell
leaves as Lady Wishfort arrives, and she
lets it be known that she wants Millamant
to marry her nephew, Sir Wilfull Witwoud,
who has just arrived from the countryside.
Lady Wishfort later gets a letter telling her
about the Sir Rowland plot. Sir Rowland
takes the letter and accuses Mirabell of
trying to sabotage their wedding. Lady
Wishfort agrees to let Sir Rowland bring a
marriage contract that night.

By Act 5, Lady Wishfort has found out the

plot, and Fainall has had Waitwell arrested.
Mrs. Fainall tells Foible that her previous
affair with Mirabell is now public
knowledge. Lady Wishfort appears with
Mrs. Marwood, whom she thanks for
unveiling the plot. Fainall then appears and
uses the information of Mrs. Fainall's
previous affair with Mirabell and
Millamant's contract to marry him to
blackmail Lady Wishfort, telling that she
should never marry and that she is to
transfer her fortune to him. Lady Wishfort
offers Mirabell her consent to the marriage
if he can save her fortune and honour.
Mirabell calls on Waitwell who brings a
contract from the time before the marriage
of the Fainalls in which Mrs. Fainall gives
all her property to Mirabell. This
neutralises the blackmail attempts, after
which Mirabell restores Mrs. Fainall's
property to her possession and then is free
to marry Millamant with the full £12000
inheritance.

Epigraph of the 1700 edition

The epigraph found on the title page of the
1700 edition of The Way of the World
contains two Latin quotations from
Horace's Satires. In their wider contexts
they read in English:

1. "It is worthwhile, for those of you who

wish adulterers no success, to hear how
much misfortune they suffer, and how
often their pleasure is marred by pain and,
though rarely achieved, even then fraught
with danger."
2. "I have no fear in her company that a
husband may rush back from the country,
the door burst open, the dog bark, the
house shake with the din, the woman,
deathly pale, leap from her bed, her
complicit maid shriek, she fearing for her
limbs, her guilty mistress for her dowry
and I for myself."

The quotations offer a forewarning of the

chaos to ensue from both infidelity and
deception.

Historical context
In 1700, the world of London theatre-going
had changed significantly from the days
of, for example, The Country Wife. Charles
II was no longer on the throne, and the
jubilant court that revelled in its
licentiousness and opulence had been
replaced by the far more dour and
utilitarian Dutch-inspired court of William
of Orange. His wife, Mary II, was, long
before her death, a retiring person who did
not appear much in public. William himself
was a military king who was reported to be
hostile to drama. The political instabilities
that had been beneath the surface of
many Restoration comedies were still
present, but with a different side seeming
victorious.

One of the features of a Restoration

comedy is the opposition of the witty and
courtly (and Cavalier) rake and the dull-
witted man of business or the country
bumpkin, who is understood to be not only
unsophisticated but often (as, for instance,
in the very popular plays of Aphra Behn in
the 1670s) either Puritan or another form
of dissenter. In 1685, the courtly and
Cavalier side was in power, and
Restoration comedies belittled the bland
and foolish losers of the Restoration.
However, by 1700, the other side was
ascendant. Therefore, The Way of the
World's recreation of the older Restoration
comedy's patterns is only one of the things
that made the play unusual.

The 1688 revolution concerning the

overthrow of James II created a new set of
social codes primarily amongst the
bourgeoisie. The new capitalist system
meant an increasing emphasis on property
and property law. Thus, the play is packed
with legal jargon and financial and marital
contracts. These new legal aspects allow
characters like Mrs. Fainall to secure her
freedom through an equitable trust and for
Mirabell and Millamant's marriage to be
equal through a prenuptial agreement.

This shift in social perspectives is perhaps

best shown in the characters of Fainall
and Mirabell, who represent respectively
the old form and new form of marital
relations: sexual power at first and then
developing into material power.

Further points of
consideration
Several aspects of the play give rise to
critical discussion:

1. The love expressed in the play tends to

be centred on material gain rather than the
love of the partner. This can be seen in the
scene where Millamant and Mirabell
effectively carry out a pre-nuptial
agreement, Millamant insisting on having
all manner of liberties and powers, quite
unusual for the time.
2. None of the characters in the play can
really be seen as 'good', and as such it is
difficult to find a hero or heroine, or indeed
anybody whom one would find deserving
of sympathy.
3. It is worth considering that the play
itself, while often regarded as a satire on
the lives of the idle-classes in 1700, may
simply testify non-satirically to the
experiences of the idle-classes.

References
1. Our Dramatic Heritage: The Eighteenth
Century, p.14, edited by Philip George Hill
Congreve, William (2000). The Way of
the World. London, England: A & C Black
 Limited.
Klekar, Cynthia. “Obligation, Coercion,
and Economy: The Gift of Deed in
Congreve’s The Way of the World.” In The
Culture of the Gift in Eighteenth-Century
England, ed. Linda Zionkowski and
Cynthia Klekar. New York: Palgrave
MacMillan, 2009

External links
Wikisource has original text related to this
article:
The Way of the World

Wikimedia Commons has media related to

The Way of the World (Congreve play).
 The Way of the World at Project
Gutenberg.
The Way of the World at the Internet
Broadway Database
Oxford Playhouse Review of The Way of
the World on the BBC website.
Daily Info review of the play .
The Way of the World public domain
audiobook at LibriVox
Some analysis of the play as part of a
college writing assignment .

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